Jeffrey L. WilsonRisen 2: Dark WatersRisen 2: Dark Waters delivers does a decent job of creating a pirate-fantasy adventure, but it feels flat at times and has trouble overcoming some of the more annoying RPG tropes.

Flexible character-building system. The game frequently autosaves, so if you fail a mission you aren't set too far back. Solid voice acting.

Cons

Buggy combat. Robotic character movement. Annoying fetch quests.

Bottom Line

Risen 2: Dark Waters delivers does a decent job of creating a pirate-fantasy adventure, but it feels flat at times and has trouble overcoming some of the more annoying RPG tropes.

Risen 2: Dark Waters, the $49.99 sequel to developer Piranha Bytes' fantasy-adventure Risen, brings Pirates of the Caribbean-style sea-faring fantasy to RPG fans. The story—which is pirate-fiction through and through—puts you in the role of a nameless Inquisition soldier who must go deep undercover into a world of swordfights, magic, and island-hopping. Risen 2 is a solid RPG with plenty of foul-mouthed high-seas dialogue, but bugs and a reliance on the genre's more annoying aspects keep it from greatness. Note: I tested the PC version, but a $59.99 PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version arrives on May 22nd.

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High Seas AdventureRisen 2 begins seven years after the original game, but playing Risen isn't a prerequisite to enjoying this title. Risen 2 is a self-contained tale that sees you guiding a hero tasked with finding the solution to the sea monster problem that's plagued Caldera, the last Inquisition fortress.

There's a deep menu system that lets you view active quests, character stats, the inventory, sea charts, and log book. The opening sequences do an adequate job of teaching you basic techniques—maneuvering, fighting, gathering objects—but you're left to your own devices when it comes to dealing with the more sophisticated mechanics such as leveling up. I spent a good amount of time simply reading the ability descriptions in the menu area—I would've preferred an in-game tutorial.

Digging Into the RPG Treasure"Glory" is Risen 2's term for experience points that are acquired by killing monsters and completing quests. Glory powers your five character attributes: Blades, Firearms, Toughness, Cunning, and Voodoo. Leveling up those attributes opens the door to other talents. Increasing Cunning, for example, improves your more bastardly abilities such as Thievery, Dirty Tricks, and Silver Tongue, which can get you out of some sticky situations. You can also develop talents by learning new skills (which are purchased with gold), wearing specific gear, and collecting legendary items. This flexibility lets you build scrappy fighter or a scoundrel-type who excels at picking locks—a nice touch.

RPG fans will enjoy the multitude of NPCs (non-player characters) to chat up. These characters don't simply deliver a bit of exposition or instruction and then disappear. There's selectable dialogue boxes that you can use to ask (and respond to) questions either in a respectable manner or as a wiseass. Every decision, according to Piranha Bytes, impacts the storyline. I angered a salty-mouthed prisoner in the early stages of the game who offered me stolen weapons in exchange for gold—he refused to talk to my character again. I restarted the game, dealt with the prisoner in a far more delicate matter, and he taught my character how to use sneaking techniques to evade guards. I liked the non-static characters that I encountered over the course of the journey.

Living The Adventurer's Life Risen 2: Dark Waters, despite featuring NPCs with lots of dialogue and decent voice acting, still comes off as flat as the characters aren't particularly memorable. Combat has fun moments once you learn more advanced techniques like parrying, but bugs (like combatants who suddenly stop attacking during an encounter) dull the fighting experience.

Piranha Bytes has crafted a graphically-interesting world crawling with creatures, ships, and soldiers. There are nice lighting effects and detailed environments, but character animations are stiff and clunky. They aren't as animatronic-like as the original Metal Gear Solid's character models, but they pulled me out of of the game, especially during dialogue scenes. On the upside, Risen 2: Dark Waters voice acting and soundtrack are quite well done.

It's the old, stodgy RPG elements from yesteryear that really got my goat. Fetch quests in 2012? There's no need for that to ever appear in a modern video game. It reeks of laziness and artificially extending the game's length in the worst way possible.

Sailing The High Seas Risen 2: Dark Waters had the potential to be far better than what was the end result—a bug-fixing patch would go a long way in improving the combat experience. That said, if you like building and tweaking characters, and fancy games where your actions affect the game world, this is worth checking out.

For more than a decade, Jeffrey L. Wilson has penned gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for a variety of publications, including 1UP, 2D-X, The Cask, Laptop, LifeStyler, Parenting, Sync, Wise Bread, and WWE. He now brings his knowledge and skillset to PCMag as Senior Analyst.
When he isn't staring at a monitor (or two) and churning out Web hosting, music, utilities, and video game copy, Jeffrey mentors, practices Jeet Kune Do, blogs, podcasts, and speaks at the occasional con. He also collects vinyl and greatly enjoys...
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